The Academy’s $24.95 admission — are you outraged?

The biggest downer during my first trip to the new California Academy of Sciences (here’s yesterday’s review) was the price. The admission was a surprising $24.95, which hurt only a little bit less upon learning that children 6 and under are admitted free. The third Wednesday of each month Every third Wednesday is free for everyone.

It works out to something like $3.50 per penguin.

I checked out other prices online, and found that depending on where you look, the new Academy entrance fees range from way out of line to comparable to other similar museums/aquariums.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium adult tickets are priced exactly the same (with free tickets for children 3 and under and less of a break for students and seniors), but I would argue that it’s a slightly different situation. I think of Monterey as more of a tourist destination as opposed to a center that is serving a metropolitan area. Highly-regarded aquariums in Georgia and Baltimore also charge in the $20-$30 range, while the John Shedd Aquarium in Chicago is $17.95 and the New England Aquarium in Boston is $19.95.

Among other big-name museums, the Smithsonian will always be free, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York has a “suggested admission” of $15. The Chicago Museum of Science and Industry costs $13. Presumably they have less overhead, because they’re not feeding and caring for many (if any) live animals.

While standing in line, I heard an announcement that the Academy was offering some sort of yearly admission that was in the $55 range, although that’s from memory, and I couldn’t find it online. Membership prices are $99 for an individual — who can bring one guest — which seems reasonable.

Bottom line, the Academy is a good deal if you live in San Francisco, where you can get a membership and visit all the time, and there are more free days for San Franciscans based the neighborhood where they reside. But I think they’re going to lose a lot of business from parents in my position, who are coming from outside the city but still might want to visit two or three times per year. If the cost was closer to $10 (the entrance fee of the Academy before the renovation) or $15, I would be more likely to visit on the spur of the moment.

I’m curious if the prices are going to hurt their business. As it stands, I expect we’ll go one more time as a family in the near future (my wife really wants to go), and then settle into a visit once every couple of years.